Successful Blog

SOBCon Comment Conference Recap: Thanks for a Fabulous Day of Q&A!

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An Expert Every Hour and Q&A for 12 Hours

Information was flying and people were moving from blog post to blog post to hear what everyone had to say about the topics being explored last Tuesday when comment box flew open all day. Think theater of the imagination meets speakers and attendees in the comment box for conversation.We purposefully set aside the video and moving technology so that folks could take time to ask a question and answer question at their own leisurely pace and worked as we hoped bringing out some of the best conversation in a while.

Thank you to all who participated!

You’ll find two links below for each speaker
The names take you to each speaker’s blog. The title links take you to each individual conversation that took place.

When and Who:

11:00 – Liz Strauss on How to Build a Personal Development Network
12:00 – Mark Carter on Saving The World With Social Media
1:00 – Lucretia Pruitt on Twittering the Way that Works Best for You
2:00 – Andy Sernovitz on Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog
3:00 – Mary-Lynn Foster on Podcast and Blog Interviewing Tips
4:00 – Easton Ellsworth on Visionary Blogging Improvements
5:00 – John Haydon on Social Media and Trust Online
6:00 – VickyHennegan on Writing for the Web
7:00 – Becky McCray on Successful Entrepreneurship
8:00 – Shannon Paul on Internet People and What They Do
9:00 –Angela Maiers on Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century
10:00 –Terry Starbucker on Pitching Social Media to Clients — 5 Key Questions for Potential Clients

Thank you, everyone again! Relationships make things happen!

C’mon Let’s Talk!

— ME “Liz” Strauss

Register Now for SOBCon09 Explode your network!

SOB Business Cafe 02-13-09

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

PR 2.0 sets the Twitter Bar on quality of relationships.
The surmounting ploys, friending races, theatrics, and contests to tempt those into following individuals can be fun, but short-sighted, when in fact the true technique for building relationships, regardless of volume, is the genuine act of earning and investing in them. It’s rooted in selflessness and rewarded with a rich stream of relevance and a network of valuable contacts that can also help you in the real world.

the paisano sets out useful social healthcare sites.
We’re not just talking about the traditional WebMD type of service either. This new breed of health service has incorporated many of the cool and useful social media tools we’ve come to expect from web 2.0 startups and social networks. Here’s a roundup of some of the best.

All Things Workplace sets up a series on Influence within and into an organization.
When you want to influence into or within an organization, it’s almost mandatory to find out what style it has and adjust your approach accordingly. If you are an employee or part of the organization, this may help you understand why you feel totally at home or out of place.

Patricia Martin sets out research on colorful thoughts.
What color most improves brain performance and receptivity to advertising, red or blue? Both can, it just depends on the nature of the task or message. According to a new study undertaken at the University of British Columbia, red is the most effective at enhancing our attention to detail, while blue is best at boosting our ability to think creatively.

SEOmoz sets out the 500 Most Linked-To
First off, we’re launching a free Linkscape API to access two of Linkscape’s most popular metrics – mozRank of a URL and the number of external links to a URL. Second, we’ve launched a list of the top 500 sites & pages on the web, ordered by the number of unique root domains linking to them (alongside other interesting SEO metrics).

Related ala carte selections include

@ColderIce recommended that we read this and I agree.

@dubster2k recommended this. It’s just plain fun!

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The Trans-Atlantic Class at the Legendary School of Journalism

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A Virtual Class, A Virtual Brief Case

At Twestival last night friends asked me about my experience teaching a class on the social web and blogging for the Masters Degree students at City University of London. They suggested I blog about the details of it — the software applications, the equipment, the people who were present, what worked and what didn’t. This blog post is meant to do that.

A Virtual Class with Virtually Everything

The journalism school at City University London, which “Has accrued legendary status within the media,” according to The Independent, was the scene for a cutting edge student experience on February 4th — a transatlantic class on the power of digital publishing. Course Director of MA Publishing Studies, Mary Ann Kernan, arranged for her MA students in the Work Placement Module to meet virtually with publishing veteran and social web strategist — Liz Strauss (um, me) — in the university lab.

The purpose of the class was a direct connection with an industry advisor who understand the uses of digital publishing in this time of rapid change as students begin their own “placement blogs.”

Preparation — the Materials: With limited time to cover a huge subject, I wanted to offer students lingering value toward developing their placement blogs –a requirement for their degree and placement in future employment. I invited students to join a group at YUDU.com group (a client site) which is built out as a “virtual briefcase” of resources. The online group would allow them to access the materials from any computer at any location. Rather than a single class syllabus. It was filled with examples of publications, resources, and links to webpages to help students see the motivation, depth, and breadth of opportunities for expression and connection that digital publishing allows. The students could review the materials at their leisure before, during, and after the session. They still have access to everything.

Preparation — the Application and Equipment: The day before the class we met via the Internet, using the lab’s Adobe Connect application, my dual screen PC, and the City U’s lab equipment, which would included every student on their own computer. After several hours of attempting a full connection, the video only worked in one direction — from the UK to the US. We weren’t quite sure what caused the problem. The audio was up and working. The chat was fully functioning. We moved forward.

I wasn’t entirely disappointed. The Chicago to London time difference meant I would be meeting the next morning at 4 a.m. Perhaps we saved the students a sight in the dark hours of my early morning …

Class Content — The class was an exciting conversation with the next generation of digital publishing professionals. We discussed the use of blogs, Twitter, the variety of e-commerce opportunities for publishers. The YUDU collection made it easy to demonstrate uses such as, groups, publishing, linking — the hyperlink feature is a standout for web users — messaging, and most importantly, the ways that the e commerce and digital publishing can be professional and easy for publishers of any size.

Class Participants The City University of London Work Placement class enrollment is half male, half career changers, with world citizens that include two from India, one from Taiwan, two from Brazil, two from the US, two from Ireland, one from France. They’ve had a thorough grounding in the strategic impact on the publishing industry of the digital shifts; several will be doing digital projects on their imminent placements (from 16 Feb) – Penguin, HarperCollins, LittleBrown, a literary agency, CUP, Haymarket Mags, Sage, Wiley; in a variety of depts and potential roles.

Also participating were Professor Kernan, the lab staff, myself, and Jonathan Cornwell, COO of YUDU, who had graciously accepted our invitation to be a part of this use of his company’s product.

It was the second City University of London session, I’ve been a part of. The first was last year (and in person) with both the school of Journalism and the Cass Business School. We look forward to continuing our ongoing relationship as we both learn more about each other and how the technology can serve us across the Atlantic.

It’s virtually thrilling to share a real-time conversation about publishing from Chicago to London with an entire university class and to finish before the sun has risen.

Any questions?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Creative Batteries: How Far Can You Go on a Single Charge?

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by Seth Simonds

How long can you work on a creative task before you need to recharge?

I like to think of my creative energy in terms of a little electric car. Not a beautiful and fast electric supercar (who am I kidding?) but a little bee-bop two-seater with an 8-inch steering wheel. If I had a picture of my creative energy, it’d look a lot like the one in the photo, only blue.

Thinking in terms of a small electric car allows me to plan for my projects based on three factors:

  1. My Range: I’m good for about 150 miles of projects before low-battery warnings start to sound. Sure, I can push a bit more, but if I do, I’ll need to take an extended break before I can get back to work in top form. There’s a time to push ahead through blinding exhaustion in order to get a task done but I try to avoid it.
  2. My Itinerary: Having a plan means I’ll know when to stop  for breaks so that I keep myself charged and can bring a project to completion. Planning can seem like a dreadfully dull portion of a project but the resulting energy makes every moment of planning worth the effort.
  3. My Destination: If you’ve ever driven a car the size of my creative energy, you know that it can be hard to see over and around the larger vehicles involved in a project. Financial restriction trucks block intersections and deadline buses will try to run you off the road. Having a clear idea of what my end product allows me to stay focused no matter what short term distraction comes up.

I’m not a tireless machine that can happily trudge around social media stapling smiles to telephone polls and posting stump speeches on my blog without ever needing a break. I’m more like that little electric car, using power at a discernible rate. I get worn out during projects and find myself growing frustrated with people over things I’d never notice if I were getting enough sleep. I get dismayed by human nature and sometimes catch myself saying things like “I hate people” even though I don’t really mean it.

That all changes when I’ve planned out a project and know what my destination is and how I plan on reaching it. When I take time to recharge by quietly reading a novel, talking on the phone with a friend, or going for a walk, I find that my energy level stays high and projects are completed with a flourish. Bringing a friend along for the ride can add a lot to a project as well. The picture of the car shows only two seats but there’s room for a lot more people than you’d imagine!

What do you do to keep your battery charged?

Seth Simonds is about writing, networking, sharing in crazy conversations with brilliant people. He writes at Seth Simonds.com
Follow him on Twitter: @sethsimonds
photo credit: Flickr: frankh

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The Company that Owned a Nation

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The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

by Jean Gogolin, WordWright

Elizabeth I of England is remembered for a lot of things – her virginity and defeating the Spanish Armada to name two – but not many people think of her as the backer of an early experiment in capitalism called the joint stock company.

But by granting a royal charter to a bunch of London businessmen intent on beating the Dutch at the spice trade, she set the stage for a business deal that shaped a nation – one that could teach Wall Street and the U.S. Congress a few lessons.

On December 31, 1600, the Queen granted a Royal Charter to “George, Earl of Cumberland and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses” to form what eventually became the East India Company. Shortly thereafter their ships set sail for the Indian Ocean, and the rest is quite literally history.

Initially, the company stuck to trading cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre (for gunpowder), tea, and that big profit maker, opium. Back home, various acts of Parliament renewed the company’s charter, in return for which the company made large loans to the government. Over time, the Company acquired Indian territory, minted money, collected revenues, maintained forts and armies, made war and peace, made treaties, and administered justice – of its own kind. Eventually, it ruled virtually all of India.

Of course, all that power corrupted. Despite its revenues from trade and other sources, the Company found itself burdened with massive military expenditures, and its future seemed bleak. Desperate, the directors tried to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help.

[Sound familiar?]

State intervention put the Company back on its feet, Parliament took greater control over the Company’s affairs, and placed India under the rule of a Governor-General in an arrangement called the Raj. [See “A Passage to India,” available through http://www.Netflix.com]

For the next 50 years, the British tried to eliminate Indian rivals, beating back Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Marathas, and subjugating the Sikhs.

Finally, of course, India rebelled and eventually won independence.

British histories of the Raj tend to focus on the regimes of law and order installed by the British, the bringing of the railways, roads, and telegraph to the natives, the institution of formal education, the introduction of British political traditions and institutions. Not to mention cricket and gin. To hear them tell the story, relationships between the Brits and the people of Indian were cordial.

But according to one source, at the same time that near-sainted Winston Churchill was waging a valiant struggle against the Nazis and Japanese, he complained to Leo Amery, Secretary of State for India, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” Churchill, you remember, spent considerable time in India.

No wonder Indian historians describe the Raj, and the reign of the East India Company, somewhat differently than the British do.

The East India Company was finally dissolved in 1874 – though interestingly, it still has a 1-page website leading nowhere: http://www.theeastindiacompany.com/

Two small remnants of its existence remain. One is the East India Club in London, now a private gentlemen’s club in St. James Square. The other, surprisingly, is the design of the American stars and stripes, which was influenced by one of the East India Company’s flags.

But the real legacy of the Company, for good and ill, is India itself, forever shaped by those 16th Century businessmen after the wealth of the East.

Jean Gogolin can be found working at WordWright and at Word Tales where she
writes about writing, the news, and the business of words in an intelligent, strategic and slightly edgy way.
Her twitter name is @jgogolin

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

When the Tribe Has Spoken, How to Find Your Voice and Own It

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Distorted Reality

I worked my heart out for a company. I traveled extensively — living on one coast, working on the other — it’s survival was my goal. The people I worked with were the most invested minds and hearts. My job was my life. That company was meaningful — for all of us and for the customers who loved us.

Then the owners — investors — decided to sell. The folks who bought us, bought an asset for their portfolio — a portfolio being built for an IPO. The culture, the customers, the intangibles were irrelevant. In one confusing move after another meant to bolster their ailing assets, the new owners slowly killed the company that was thriving.

On my last day, 25% of the company’s staff was told “Good-bye.”

I remember having one thought driving home that afternoon.
The tribe has spoken.

Reality was distorted.

Finding Your Own Voice and Owning It

My dad told me life is survival of the fittest. Have a heart and use my mind — pay attention. On the way to school, he’d point to people we’d see. He’d tell me their stories hoping I’d learn lessons about being fit and surviving. But wisdom and experience can be hard to pass on.

Hot might not mean much until after you’ve touched the stove.

I learned a lot in the weeks after the company I loved told me to go. I learned about how people act, what they really mean, and what to do to get moving forward again. Reality didn’t take shape again in hours. It took some work and time, but the work and time were well invested. And like my dad, I’ll pass on what I can. Here’s some thoughts about how to survive a when the tribe has spoken.

  • They say it isn’t personal. Of course it is. Removing people from jobs totally disrupts their lives. How much more personal can it get? Losing an income is bad enough — losing connections to the people who were friends is a jolting personal loss.

    Respect that.

  • No one knows what to do next. Suddenly a tribe becomes about who is and isn’t. The gone ones have a ticking clock and so much empty time. The survivors are surrounded by empty spaces where people used to work. The chasm is wide and threatening. Most humans feel and fear that danger. They do unexpected, often hurtful things, to hide that.

    Forgive the fearful.

  • No tribe is the only tribe. When a person spends every waking hours invested in working for something, it skews perspective. A big part of a life can seem to be a big part of the world.

    Kick that tribe from the center of your universe.

  • Mourn short. Live long. Recover. I had thought, “I don’t want a new puppy. I want the puppy that died.” When I looked clearly at what had happened, I realized that the poor pup had been dead for months, and we’d been pretending. I let go of thinking about what they took — because they hadn’t taken anything.

    Take back your future.

  • Own your part. I saw myself and my part of it with new eyes. I’d been unhappy and too attached to what had been. The new owners had a new vision. In my own way, I’d refused to be part of it.

    Learn from yourself.

  • Come to a conclusion. Quit surviving and start living. Live and connect. Show everyone the smile that the next tribe might earn, but no tribe will own.

    Answer with your own voice.

Losing a tribe isn’t the same as losing a life.

Yesterday a woman, I so respect, told a story of how she was knocked down by something big. I know her and it won’t shake her voice. No tribe will ever own her. But not all of our friends are as determined or deadset on succeeding as she is. Some need us to help them learn how.

If you need help finding your voice, reach out to find direction and worth in the noise and confusion. If you have friends who gone because the tribe has spoken, what can we do to bring them back? How can we help them get on their path again.

We need everyone.

If you think this would help anyone you know, do them a favor and pass it on? Stumble it, Tweet it, or email it to them.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!